by Ted Sanders
Chloe pressed her foot against Horace’s. “You got this,” she said softly, and then slipped away to Dailen’s side.
Brula stopped in front of Horace, hoisting the stone pitchers. “Each of these pitchers contains water. In a few moments’ time, I will pour out the contents of one of them.”
“And you want me to tell you which one,” said Horace, relieved that the test could be so simple.
But Brula said, “Hardly. This is Ka’hoka, not a child’s magic show.” He reached out with a single great foot and smoothed a wide patch of dirt on the floor in front of him. “Look into the future, Keeper. Watch me pour the water. And then outline for us all the shape of whatever spill the water will make on this floor.”
“You’ve got to be kidding,” Chloe said.
Brula raised his eyebrows at Horace. “Is it beyond you, Keeper?”
Horace’s mind raced, trying to picture it. A puddle of spilled water. Simple on the surface, but actually a nightmare. The Altari was asking for an insane level of precision regarding a very imprecise and unpredictable event. Messy processes that involved complicated physics—fire, running water, even clouds—were never completely precise when viewed through the box. Too much uncertainty, too little . . . humanity.
“Spilling water is a very random event,” Horace said. “The Fel’Daera doesn’t do random very well.”
Brula nodded. “I am aware.”
Horace didn’t like hearing that. The problem of randomness was one of the first lessons Horace had learned with the box, when he had attempted to watch the lottery results a day in advance. It seemed like years ago. He’d watched the next day’s little white balls on TV, bouncing around inside the lottery machine, but when the balls were chosen, the numbers on them had been unreadable, black digits flickering madly from one to the next. Too many variables, too many tiny influences, with very little willful contribution from anyone living. Just the smiling, lipsticked woman who opened the little plastic door to let a random ball shoot out.
But then again, that was before he’d learned to control the breach. He’d been watching the lottery drawing a full day in advance. Now, though, he was only being asked to look a few seconds ahead, and viewings in the near future were of course more accurate. He glanced at Chloe. She knitted her brow and nodded at him encouragingly. Or more like insistently, to be honest.
“Is there a problem, Keeper?” Brula said, his deep voice sickly sweet.
“Using the Fel’Daera requires thought,” Chloe said snarkily. “You should try it sometime.”
“There’s no problem,” Horace told Brula. “I think you know you’ve given me a difficult challenge.”
“I’m familiar with the Fel’Daera’s many limitations,” Brula said.
Suddenly Horace wondered whether the Altari wanted him to fail. The Council was searching for evidence that the box could mislead, could see falsely, could fail to witness whatever might occur. He reasoned it through as quickly as he could—Brula’s hopes, his motivations, his possible paths.
“Let Chloe pour the water,” Horace said, knowing the Altari would refuse.
Sure enough, Brula shook his head. “Your closest allies will act in a manner most agreeable to whatever future you witness. The Riven, however, will not—and therefore I won’t either. I will pour the water. As I see fit.”
One offer refused. But that was fine, because it was the next one Horace really needed. “Then you at least have to close your eyes,” he said. “It’s only fair. If I sketch out the spill ahead of time, and you see it, you might change what you do.”
Brula’s eyes narrowed as he considered it.
“Besides,” Horace pressed, “keeping my prediction secret won’t compromise your test. I don’t share my predictions with the Riven, either.” This last bit, of course, wasn’t strictly true—he’d shared his visions, for various reasons, with Dr. Jericho more than once. But Brula didn’t need to know that. “In fact,” Horace said, feeling braver and looking around the room, “I want everyone here to close their eyes. Like it or not, I am the Keeper of the Fel’Daera. What the box reveals is for me alone.”
At last Brula nodded. “As you wish, Keeper.” He closed his magnificent eyes. Everyone else did the same, Chloe last of all. “Tell me when you have witnessed what I ask,” said Brula. “Trace the spill you see in the dirt. Then I will pour the water, and afterward we will learn how true a witness the Fel’Daera can be.”
Horace bent his head, clearing his mind, gathering the necessary threads—this place, this test, this reluctant ally standing before him. And Brula was an ally, Horace felt sure of it. An ally who needed convincing. It wasn’t a matter of guessing what Brula would do. Guessing meant having expectations, and expectations could steer the box astray. Still, Horace had to wonder: why would an ally give him an all but impossible test?
At last, his thoughts settled. With the ease of long practice, he shed himself of all hopes, all guesses, all theories. Anything was possible. But only one thing would happen.
When he was ready, Horace opened the box. The breach lay at thirty seconds. And there in that future—Brula, still standing with eyes closed, pitchers by his side; almost immediately the left arm moving, lifting the pitcher.
Horace watched as Brula started to pour the water. And as he watched, he nearly laughed. He could do this; he would do this, no matter what Brula’s intentions were. When he had seen all he needed to see, Horace bent to the ground, leaving the box open. With his fingertip, he traced lines in the dirt, revealing the future of the water that Brula—for the present moment, anyway—still held in his hand.
When he was done, twenty-one seconds after he’d seen Brula begin to lift the pitcher, Horace stood up. He closed the box. “It’s done,” he said. “I’ve seen it. Keep your eyes closed and do what you’re going to do.”
For a moment Brula didn’t move. A sudden fear gripped Horace that the Altari would fail to act at all. But then, at thirty seconds on the dot, Brula raised the pitcher in his left hand, just as Horace had foreseen. Instead of pouring it onto the ground, however, as he’d suggested he would, the Altari tipped back his head, spread his lips wide, and poured the water into his waiting mouth. Horace watched stoically as Brula drank it all. When he was done, Brula tossed the empty pitcher aside and wiped his wide, smiling mouth.
“And now we see,” he sang happily.
Brula opened his eyes. He dropped his chin and gazed down at the ground at his feet. His smile faded. He said nothing. Around the room, other pairs of eyes began to cautiously open. When Chloe opened hers, she stormed forward angrily.
“What gives?” she said. “There’s no water. You said you were going to pour it—” And then she got close enough to see what Horace had scratched into the dry dirt at Brula’s feet. Not an outline of a spill at all. There was no spill. There was never going to be a spill. Instead, Horace had written two simple words:
THIRSTY
MUCH?
Chloe stared. She started to laugh. “He drank it? Oh, man. Oh my god.” She turned to Horace, her face wrinkled with glee. Then she actually poked Brula in the leg. “And you thought you were being so sneaky!”
“You can’t lie to me,” Horace said to Brula. “Not about any future I can see. I’m better than that.” Horace stretched out his foot and kicked away the words he’d written. It seemed only polite. “And I don’t know what happened to the last Keeper of the Fel’Daera, or why that got you so spooked, but I’m better than him too. Or her. Or whoever. The point is, I—”
“You’re a Paragon,” said a new voice, rippling across the room like a rain of tiny crystals, like a distant chorus of bells carried on the wind. Horace whirled around.
There in the doorway stood an Altari, tall and thin and seemingly made of alabaster. She was wrapped in gauzy white fabric, her long arms folded at her belly, the slender fingers of her strong, delicate hands intertwined like the strings of some imagined instrument. Her face was ancient and smooth and almost too bea
utiful to behold, the shining rings of her dark eyes as bright as halos. A long braided chain hung around her neck, from which dangled a large oval pendant, black as night. She smiled at Horace, and his knees went weak. Light seemed to spill from the Altari’s face.
“Welcome, Keeper,” she said. “Well met at last. I am Sil’falo Teneves.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Thus Are We Protected
“IT’S NOT MUCH,” MRS. HAPSTEADE SAID, “BUT IT’LL HELP GET the stink of the Riven off you.”
April bent over the bowl of golden, steaming soup. It smelled like a forest. “What is it?”
“Ginkgo-leaf soup. A special dish of mine.” Mrs. Hapsteade shrugged. “My only dish.”
“There’s no spoon,” Joshua said, frowning at his bowl. The Laithe of Teneves hung in the air just beside him here in Mrs. Hapsteade’s doba, astonishing and lovely. When they’d first arrived back at the Warren after the escape on the rooftop, April hadn’t been able to take her eyes off the Laithe. In the few hours since, she’d gotten used to it. Sort of. The little globe had a magnetic presence that was—to April’s mind, anyway—almost animal-like. Joshua himself, meanwhile, had been moody and sulky, despite the fact that he’d saved them all. When congratulated or thanked, he just looked darkly at the ground.
“Spoons,” Mrs. Hapsteade scoffed genially. “Why bother with what you don’t need?” She didn’t explain, but April understood. She picked up her bowl and sipped at it cautiously. The soup, surprisingly, tasted nothing like it smelled. It was sweet and delicate. Delicious. April made herself sip slowly, trying not to slurp. She could feel Arthur, sitting on her shoulder on the leather perch Brian had made her, watching her with polite, intelligent interest. Joshua, meanwhile, just sat staring at his bowl.
Without turning around, Mrs. Hapsteade spoke, raising her voice slightly. “Would you like a bowl of soup, Ingrid?” she asked.
April went on sipping as if she weren’t perturbed, but she watched intently through Arthur’s eyes as Ingrid, sitting alone in a chair against the shadowy wall of Mrs. Hapsteade’s doba, sat forward into the light. The girl smirked scornfully. “I’ve lost my taste for it, thanks.”
“You never cared for it much, as I recall,” said Mrs. Hapsteade briskly.
“You might also recall I never cared much for any of this.” Ingrid spread her arms, seeming to indicate the entire Warren and everything in it.
Mrs. Hapsteade sighed. “Except for Gabriel, of course. We are all fond of Gabriel, aren’t we?”
Ingrid glowered and leaned back into the shadows.
April had been startled to discover, when she first walked in, that Ingrid was simply sitting here in Mrs. Hapsteade’s living room. Or whatever room it was. She’d heard Ingrid had been captured, of course—it was all Neptune had talked about since April and Gabriel’s return. Neptune seemed to have a particular hatred for the former Warden turned traitor.
At first sight, April had wondered why Ingrid wasn’t chained up, or locked in a room somewhere. But she’d come to realize that she was chained. A scarlet belt, seemingly made of light, encircled her waist tightly. It held her in place, scarcely budging more than a few inches in any direction. A matching band was looped around Mrs. Hapsteade’s wrist.
“I might enjoy it more if you’d take this bola off me,” Ingrid said now, squirming but trying not to let it show. “It pinches, you know.”
“I do know,” Mrs. Hapsteade replied lightly. “And I might enjoy it more if the bola were around your neck instead of your waist.” She leaned over to Joshua and laid a kind hand on his arm. “Joshua, it seems like you and this soup can’t agree. Would you like some crackers?”
“I’m not hungry,” Joshua mumbled.
“I’m sorry I don’t have more to offer. We haven’t had this many souls in the Warren since before you all were born. It’s getting a bit crowded.”
April did some mental counting. Joshua and herself, the five other Wardens, Isabel and Ingrid, plus Horace’s mom—ten people in a massive place like the Warren didn’t seem like much of a crowd to April, but she supposed Mrs. Hapsteade had gotten used to far less.
“With any luck,” Ingrid said, “you’ll have an even bigger crowd to deal with soon. Much bigger.”
Joshua jerked his head up to look at her. “What does that mean?” he said, obviously alarmed.
“She’s just trying to scare you,” said April. “Don’t listen to her.”
“All the portals you’ve opened in this place today,” Ingrid went on, shaking her head. “You might as well have put up a—”
Mrs. Hapsteade whirled to face her. “I know you’re frightened, dear. Worried about your Tan’ji. It must be truly terrifying to know that you might never see it again. Do you think you’ll receive any warning before they send it to the ether?”
Ingrid flinched. “Mr. Meister would never do that to me.”
“It won’t be up to him. Two of our Wardens went to speak to the Council hours ago. I wonder if your fate has already been decided?”
Ingrid lapsed into silence. April kept a straight face, trying to pretend that she knew what Mrs. Hapsteade was talking about. The ether? The Council? And the two Wardens—did she mean Horace and Chloe? Gabriel and Mr. Meister seemed to think they’d been taken to some mysterious haven of the Altari, some tremendously secret place. But no one had mentioned any Council.
Right at April’s ear, Arthur made his soft chuckling noise, a kind of friendly concern. He was looking at Joshua, and Joshua, in turn, was still staring at Ingrid.
“Hey,” April said softly to the boy. “Don’t worry about it.”
“But people saw my portals,” he said. “The Riven, I mean. Dr. Jericho, and—”
Mrs. Hapsteade interrupted him. “Even Dr. Jericho can’t discover the location of the Warren just by looking through a portal. No more than I could discover the location of a house by looking at a photograph of a bedroom.”
“But . . .” Joshua’s voice and face twisted painfully, and a sudden surge of silent tears poured from his eyes.
“What is it?” April said. “What’s wrong?”
Joshua pushed his chair away from the table, nearly falling over, and ran out of the doba. April moved to follow, but Mrs. Hapsteade stopped her, rising.
“Stay here,” she said. “He needs reassurance you can’t give him.” She swept out of the room after him.
April sat down. She felt Ingrid’s eyes on her. She reached back to scratch at Arthur, for comfort, but the bird squawked and flapped away, cracking her hard on the head with his wing. She felt the impact through the vine, too, in her wrist—a strange reminder of the shared anatomy between herself and the raven, their homologous bones.
“Nice bird,” said Ingrid, watching the raven strut across the floor.
“He is nice. But I didn’t make him.”
“You’re new, aren’t you?” Ingrid said. “A neophyte.”
April didn’t reply. Arthur walked out the front door, following Joshua and Mrs. Hapsteade. They had wandered deeper into the Great Burrow, too far for Arthur to hear them, but she could see them clearly.
“I wonder how long it will take you to figure it out?” said Ingrid. “It took me years.”
“Everybody learns at different speeds,” April said, only half listening.
“You’ll have to learn fast. The end is coming soon unless we stop it.”
Now April looked at her. “The end of what?”
Ingrid pointed to the Ravenvine. “That.” She nodded at the Vora, standing prominently on a bookcase several feet away. “That.” She tugged at the bola around her waist. “Even this.”
“Sounds very apocalyptic,” April said. Outside, Joshua was still crying. April saw him mouth the words “I’m sorry.”
“Oh, I’m not the one preaching the apocalypse,” Ingrid said. “That’d be your new friends. They believe in their ridiculous omens so much they’re willing to let the true end come. They’re scaring themselves to death—li
terally.”
April was so confused, so angry. “I don’t know what you think—”
Mrs. Hapsteade exploded into the room. Her face was thick with concern. She ignored both of them, however, instead bustling over to the Vora. She tucked the quill and ink into a large pocket of her black dress. Only then did she turn to April.
“I need you,” she said, and left as quickly as she’d come.
“In a hurry to get to nowhere, as usual,” said Ingrid.
April started after Mrs. Hapsteade, but stopped at the door and looked back at Ingrid. “By the way, you don’t smell so great,” April said, and then she left her there.
Outside, Mrs. Hapsteade spoke quietly, urgently. “Go to Vithra’s Eye. See what only you can see.”
“Is something wrong?”
“I don’t know. I need to speak with Mr. Meister.”
“Is it the Riven? The portals? You said Dr. Jericho wouldn’t be able to find the Warren.”
“He can’t.”
Up ahead, Joshua watched them talk with his fists pressed against his mouth. All at once he threw his arms down to his sides.
“I didn’t mean to!” he cried. “She was in my head!”
April frowned, confused, but then she froze. The escape on the rooftop. The portal, open back into the Warren. The Riven everywhere, Mordin and the golem and—
“The Auditor,” she whispered. She looked at Mrs. Hapsteade. “But that’s crazy. Even if she was in Joshua’s head, in the Laithe, that doesn’t mean—”
“Maybe not. Neither of us are the experts here. Go to the Eye. Meet us back in Mr. Meister’s office.” She turned to go.
“But what I am I even looking for?”
“The owls,” she called back. “You’ll know if something’s wrong.”
The weird little owls of Vithra’s Eye. April had felt them before. She ran up the passageway to the lake now, reaching out with the vine. Before she was even twenty feet from the shore, she felt one, cruising silently above the water. And now another. The owls here were like none she’d ever encountered. They lived somewhere high above the water, she knew, in the crown of the huge chamber. They lived in holes in the rock, almost like swallows. She had absolutely no idea what they ate.